Americans Against Handling of the Budget Deficit

12/16/2009, by Proloy Bhatta

HIGHLIGHTS

• Obama's approval rating on his handling Afghanistan has jumped.
• Obama has low approval ratings on his handling of the federal budget deficit.
• Obama's average approval rating for the issues is 42% according to Fox and 47% according to ABC.

ABC and Fox news have each recently released polls on Obama's handling of the issues. Here is the run down:

Obama scores the highest marks in his handling of Afghanistan and the military but the lowest marks on his handling of the budget deficit.

Obama has low marks on his handling of jobs and unemployment. But the irony to all of this is the fact that in order for the government to create jobs, they have to spend from the deficit. The government does not own any wealth except by means of taxing its citizens or printing more money.

This trade-off was addressed by Obama in the beginning of his presidency when he stated that he was going to have to take uncomfortable measures to get the economy moving again -- and when the economy improves, the government would be able to raise more in taxes naturally to pay off that deficit.

But unemployment has reached double digits and that is causing his poll numbers on every issue to take a hit. Because of this, Obama's average approval rating on the issues is quite low. Fox has him at 42% and ABC has him at 47% -- each behind his generic approval rating.

The one caveat to this is the fact that his approval rating on his handling of Afghanistan has jumped since he sent an additional 30,000 troops.